[TR] Sloan- West face variation 8/5/2006

[Rad]

Climb: Sloan-West face variation

 

Date of Climb: 8/5/2006

 

Trip Report:

Alex and I climbed a variation of the West Face of Sloan.

 

For some reason, CC would not let me edit photos in the TR so I put them in a reply down below. Text only version:

...

 

The Bedal Creek approach trail is in great shape thanks to recent trail work. Water is available all the way to the climb.

 

We headed up to the right skyline in the photo below.

 

We simul-climbed up the ridgecrest to a heather bench, and then hiked right on heather ledges. Alex led a pitch up undulating solid rock to a belay at a block.

 

I got the next pitch, which turned out to be the best of the day (5.7ish). It started with an airy traverse into a dihedral, went up the dihedral to a pod at a small bulge, gained the upper dihedral, and topped out on a large ledge with loose rock. This is the top 1/3 of the large dihedral indicated in the arrow below.

 

We looked around and decided to head left for a buttress. To get there, we scrambled down a heather slope, bouldered up a short rock step, and hiked further left on more heather (perhaps a pattern emerging?). Alex led a long moderate pitch straight up solid rock coated in lichen.

 

 

I led another pitch as the buttress narrowed to a nice ridge and the angle kicked back. We stopped at an enormous heather ledge and unroped.

 

After hiking around a bit looking for the corkscrew trail, we scrambled up a gully another several hundred feet and found the superhighway.

 

There we ditched our packs, scrambled to the summit, soaked in the sun, and wondered if our descent was going to be harrowing. Turned out it was very straightforward.

 

Hike the superhighway to a point on the South Face. Scramble down heather about a hundred feet to a red cord anchor on a rock. Rap 30m (or 25m to a crappy intermediate anchor) to more ledges. Hike down the lower shelf to within 30m of the snow. Rap down to the snow.

 

Hike across snow and rock to an amazing bivy and saddle

 

Gear Notes:

#2 and #3 camalots very useful on dihedral. Took crampons but didn't need them.

 

Approach Notes:

Drive via Darrington, not Barlow Pass!

Bedal creek trail is in great condition.

Descent via lower shelf is easy.

Water available to within a few hundred yards of the route.

Edited August 7, 2006 by Rad

[Alex]

Its taken me like 5 or 6 years to finally come back and climb this side of Sloan after an exploratory hike with Dennis Goll many years ago. This face deserves way more attention than it gets. While the regular "West Face" route (i.e. path of least resistance) is nothing particularly sustained or difficult - the hard bits can be mostly curcumvented with artful ledge scrambling - there is so much potential for high quality, solid, and hard alpine rock routes everywhere! Walking along the base of the SW face was like walking along the base of the Upper Town Wall at Index...line after line of really awesome steep granite rising directly from the steep slope vertically for many pitches! Add to that the available water, and the amazing work to the approach trail up Bedal basin the USFS has done the last two years making the approach a complete breeze, you've got a great recipe for alpine-style craggin' with a relatively short drive and approach.

 

I think one of the reason it doesnt get traffic is the sheer size of the face and potentially difficult route finding; I'll post a detailed topo later of the route we took, which was a variation of the line Stanton and Welch took in 2003 and looked to be much better climbing than what Beckey describes as his 1958 route, and should ease some route-finding concerns.

[Weekend_Climberz]

Sweet dudes!

 

Yo, gonna get some this weekend

[Alpinfox]

 

How long is the approach?

[Alex]

Approach is around 1 hour on good trail (used to suck, not anymore), then 20 min up a faint trail climber's right up the obvious and large rocky water drainage, then at an indistinct cairn and some flagging the trail picks up through the woods again to treeline another 20 min. From treeline its another 40 min or so to the base of whatever route you want to climb: NW Buttress a la Bunker-Preiss, West Face, or new route potential however hard you are feeling.

[Rad]

The Bedal Creek approach trail is in great shape thanks to recent trail work. Water is available all the way to the climb.

 

We headed up to the right skyline in the photo below.

 

 

We simul-climbed up the ridgecrest to a heather bench, and then hiked right on heather ledges. Alex led a pitch up undulating solid rock to a belay at a block. I got the next pitch, which turned out to be the best of the day (5.7ish). It started with an airy traverse into a dihedral, went up the dihedral to a pod at a small bulge, gained the upper dihedral, and topped out on a large ledge with loose rock. This is the top 1/3 of the large dihedral indicated in the arrow below. (Red was roped. Blue was heather hiking. Green arrow is the prominent dihedral.)

 

We looked around and decided to head left for a buttress. To get there, we scrambled down a heather slope, bouldered up a short rock step, and hiked further left on more heather (perhaps a pattern emerging?). Alex led a long moderate pitch straight up solid rock coated in lichen.

 

 

I led another pitch as the buttress narrowed to a nice ridge and the angle kicked back. We stopped at an enormous heather ledge and unroped.

 

After hiking around a bit looking for the corkscrew trail, we scrambled up a gully another several hundred feet and found the superhighway.

 

There we ditched our packs, scrambled to the summit, soaked in the sun, and wondered if our descent was going to be harrowing. Turned out it was very straightforward.

 

Hike the superhighway to a point on the South Face. Scramble down heather about a hundred feet to a red cord anchor on a rock. Rap 30m (or 25m to a crappy intermediate anchor) to more ledges. Hike down the lower shelf to within 30m of the snow (blue line below).

 

Rap down to the snow and hike across snow and rock to an amazing bivy and the saddle lowest saddle along the S ridge.

Soak in the ambience:

 

Admire the amazing route potential of the 400 foot vertical walls of the SW face:

Edited August 7, 2006 by Rad

[Rad]

At a steady old-man plodding pace:

Left car 6:30am.

Base of main W Face at 8am.

Roped up at the ridge above a little after 9am.

Unroped by 1pm.

On top by 2pm after some wandering around.

Saw about a dozen climbers who'd come up the Corkscrew route on a picture perfect day in the alpine.

Back at the bivy site on the S ridge by 4pm.

Car at 6:30pm.

[magellan]

Crap, I wish I'd known you were going. I wanted to do the Bedal/lower shelf but was concerned I would be unable to downclimb the whole route, ie, no rappel. Your thoughts?

[Rad]

You probably need a 50m rope to rap past some rock between the upper shelf and lower shelf. That would probably be a 5th class downclimb.

 

We didn't walk all the way down to the end of the lower shelf, but I bet you'd be fine. There is a bit of a moat so you have to drop to the snow in the right spot.

 

The lower shelf is almost completely snow-free right now, and the remaining snow is melting fast and calving off.

 

As we were hiking out we ran into a party of 3 planning to ascend and descend the lower shelf route. They didn't bring a rope. They would know for sure how you'd fare.

 

Good luck!